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Three Men Charged in ‘Swatting’ Schemes

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Re: Three Men Charged in ‘Swatting’ Schemes

#81

Post by masonic »

geofft wrote: post #58
djsumdog wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just the audio of the swatter though, right? I don't think there's any video of the actual incident is there? Maybe the dude didn't understand what the big deal was and kept dropping his hands? Someone probably jumped the gun? I wonder if that team had non-lethal weapons and just didn't get them out. If he didn't have a firearm, a beanbag rifle could have ended this much differently.

Also remember the case of Oscar Grant, killed by a BART cop who had a taser but used his pistol instead. One of the arguments in court was that he grabbed the wrong weapon in the heat of the moment.

That would have been a possible explanation except that Grant was subdued and still by that point; there was no justifiable use for the Taser, either.

Re: Three Men Charged in ‘Swatting’ Schemes

#82

Post by omeid2 »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #26
omeid2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate to say, but it's a slippery slope The underlying problem is that police should not jump to lethal force and have proper training to contain dangerous situation, not kill people who are crawling on the floor under their orders. The problem is not distinguishing between a legit line and a spoof, it is having a police force that is not trigger happy who cowardly justify every killing with "I was scared for my l…

Again, that's a different issue and separate from calling the Swat teams. The cops are told that murder has happened and a person that had "killed" his family member has zero to lose, so yeah, cops are afraid. The person that sees 20 armed cops or has a grenade thrown through his window will freak out and not act rationally. Recipe for disaster, all because someone made that call. 19 years old going to jail for 20-25…

I am no army general or special forces specialist but one has to wonder why is throwing a grenade or any other aggressive action is the first line of action for any highly tactical large team with arguably the world's most advanced tech?

The consequences of the situation is perhaps up-to-debate but that is missing the point, the SWAT teams shouldn't be acting reactionary and out of fear, they should be, well, tactical about the situation and not burst into homes and hotels like they're in war-zone doing a Search and Destroy.

Re: Three Men Charged in ‘Swatting’ Schemes

#83

Post by hanging »

hermitdev wrote: post #2

Several things need to be done. These idiots should be charged with something along the lines of conspiracy to commit murder. The phone system needs to be updated to prevent apoofing of numbers. I know it jas its reasons for corporate exchanges and whatnot, but safety outweighs that. A Telco should be able to uniquely identify precisely who made a call. Along the way: no blocked numbers on caller ID. I dont answer a…

First responders need to be hardened against these simple redirection calls that don't come through 911 -- spoofing Caller ID is easy, but spoofing ANI is not.

Re: Three Men Charged in ‘Swatting’ Schemes

#84

Post by masonic »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #24
hermitdev wrote: post #2

Several things need to be done. These idiots should be charged with something along the lines of conspiracy to commit murder. The phone system needs to be updated to prevent apoofing of numbers. I know it jas its reasons for corporate exchanges and whatnot, but safety outweighs that. A Telco should be able to uniquely identify precisely who made a call. Along the way: no blocked numbers on caller ID. I dont answer a…

> The phone system needs to be updated to prevent apoofing of numbers. I know it jas its reasons for corporate exchanges and whatnot, but safety outweighs that. A Telco should be able to uniquely identify precisely who made a call. I would never (unless I have a serious reason to believe this can save a life) report a crime non-anonymously as I neither want to become a suspect (for many kinds of crimes this is possib…

  A Telco should be able to uniquely identify precisely who made a call
It can, via ANI, when 911 is called (ANI for landline, another mechanism for mobile).

Swatters, however, generally spoof Caller ID and call a general police switchboard or dispatch line directly. Police don't have the discretion to just ignore blocked numbers.

Re: Three Men Charged in ‘Swatting’ Schemes

#85

Post by masonic »

chrisseaton wrote: post #3
hermitdev wrote: post #2

Several things need to be done. These idiots should be charged with something along the lines of conspiracy to commit murder. The phone system needs to be updated to prevent apoofing of numbers. I know it jas its reasons for corporate exchanges and whatnot, but safety outweighs that. A Telco should be able to uniquely identify precisely who made a call. Along the way: no blocked numbers on caller ID. I dont answer a…

> should be charged with something along the lines of conspiracy to commit murder How do you prove the intent was to murder rather than to harass? You think you’re being clever by charging with something more serious, then the charge fails because really you just wanted what they really did to have a steeper punishment. > I dont answer a blocked number, anyway They don’t call you - it doesn’t matter what you’d do - t…

  How do you prove the intent was to murder rather than to harass?
That's not their burden. The Felony Murder rule means that the person shares responsibility for the homicide.

Re: Three Men Charged in ‘Swatting’ Schemes

#86

Post by [deleted] »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #61
usefulcat wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Police who are so easy to be "scared for life" should not be in the force, in the same way someone with pyrophobia should not be a firefighter. I take your point, but at the same time, that's a very easy thing to say when it's not your life that is on the line. Unless you have first hand experience doing that kind of job, I would strongly advise a bit of restraint in being quite so judgemental.

I might be less judgmental if the police were ever willing to admit that they could have done anything differently. IIRC, the victim in one swatting death was lying on the floor crying as two cops screamed contradictory orders at him, reached down to pull his pants up after crawling forward as instructed, and was shot dead. I might have been able to respect, at a bare minimum, a police response along the lines of "we…

[deleted]

Re: Three Men Charged in ‘Swatting’ Schemes

#87

Post by R0uterR00ter »

there are 2 problems i see with the swatting issue.

1] obvious, but the mentality of self elevated importance, and attachment of personal loss with a game [combatsimulator] that primes a person into an aggressive mentality.

2] there is no carrot and stick for LEO's. There is qualified immunity from prosecution, ideally this prevents a cop or other responder from being sued for adverse results, of acting "whithin legal authority" and "as a reasonable person"

The end result is No Consequences fro screwing up under the veil of legal authority and reasonable actions. This veil has been stretched so thin that it is starting to breakdown, as there are now LEO and other responders actually doing some prison time, vs 15 years ago when police were heavily militarized and 911 was fresh in our heads; when any degree of force was legitimate to intercept domestic threats.

Re: Three Men Charged in ‘Swatting’ Schemes

#88

Post by scotty79 »

m0zg wrote: post #62
aharrison wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised you didn't mention anything about police being held accountable when responding with unreasonable force to anonymous tips. If we are going to start talking about fixing this issue, I'm not sure getting rid of blocked numbers is going to materially impact these outcomes. Likewise, what is your recommendation on eliminating the threat of burner phones?

Technically, in the US the police doesn't have to protect you (search "no duty to protect"). And "holding them accountable" much beyond the existing threshold will ensure they won't show up at all except to collect the body.

It sounds like you are saying that better police cannot exist. But it exists in every first world country except the US.

Re: Three Men Charged in ‘Swatting’ Schemes

#89

Post by scotty79 »

specialp wrote: post #12

The main perpetrator whom gave up his friends Tyler Rai Barriss actually did cause the death of someone in Kansas by "Swatting" them. He then was completely unapologetic. These new indictments are after he accepted a plea deal for 20-25 years in federal prison. Here is his twitter: https://twitter.com/goredtutor36?lang=en . He boasted about swatting people and somehow got internet access in prison and posted his late…

> He then was completely unapologetic.

I'm guesing the police was completely unapologetic as well.

Re: Three Men Charged in ‘Swatting’ Schemes

#90

Post by scotty79 »

chipperyman573 wrote: post #13
aharrison wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised you didn't mention anything about police being held accountable when responding with unreasonable force to anonymous tips. If we are going to start talking about fixing this issue, I'm not sure getting rid of blocked numbers is going to materially impact these outcomes. Likewise, what is your recommendation on eliminating the threat of burner phones?

>I'm a little surprised you didn't mention anything about police being held accountable when responding with unreasonable force to anonymous tips I think the logic behind this is that if the tip was correct then trying to talk it out/etc could end much worse for everyone involved. You have to remember that, to the best of the officer's knowledge, there is a live hostage in a building somewhere that needs to be saved…

Ok. Worst case if they restrained themselves from killing the suspect is that one citizen is dead and they couldn't prevented it.

Actual outcome was that one citizen is dead because they murdered him. I don't see how much worse is first outcome when compared to the second one.

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